Tuesday Top Ten

This week's topic over at The Broke and Bookish is Top Ten Books Read Before Becoming a (Book) Blogger which is actually more difficult than I would have expected.  I've been blogging for almost seven years now, and while my blog didn't start out as a book blog, it slowly morphed.  As a result, there are a few titles where I'm not even sure if  I wrote an entry on them or not.  For example, I wasn't really writing about books when I read The Time Traveler's Wife but I definitely wrote about it.  That may have actually been the beginning of my transition.

1. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

2. Beloved by Toni Morrison

3. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

4. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

5. Summer by Edith Wharton

6. Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

8. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

9. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmerman Bradley

10. The Stand by Stephen King

I didn't include Game of Thrones because I reread and blogged about it.

Meme of 5

Via Peter's Cross Station.

What were you doing five years ago?
Let's see, May 2003: I was finishing up my freshmen year of college and taking my first summer course (Women in Film and Television). Part of that involved moving out of the dorm and back in with the parents. I was also using that summer to get some distance from an incredibly confusing and dysfunctional relationship although we quickly fell into our same routine once the summer was over. I wasn't working. Yeah, really not much going on five years ago.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
1. Personal Training session
2. Movies (Forgetting Sarah Marshall)
3. Dinner with parents and their friends
4. Update blog
5. Meet old high school/college friend for coffee
(I'm on vacation!)

What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Cheese (feta, muenster, whatever happens to be in the fridge)
2. kettle chips (although, I tend to eat them with sandwiches and thus as a meal rather than as a snack)
3. ice cream (soft serve)
4. popcorn
5. Salzstangen (it's German pretzel sticks but better)

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Have a huge personal library in my house (as well as a nice music and DVD collection).
2. Have a private movie theater in my home (how hard would it be to get copies of films at the same time as the theaters?)
3. Own an apartment in London, New York City and other places in addition to a nice house somewhere (with the movie theater), and, of course, travel all over
4. Donate to charities
5. Make sure my parents had a spot in the nicest retirement home available (just kidding). But yeah, buy them a house and all that stuff.

What are five of your bad habits?
1. Impatient/ Easily Annoyed
2. I procrastinate a lot
3. I hate to clean, cook etc. and my room/apartment tends to clutter up.
4. Very unhealthy eating habits (snacking, indulging too much)
5. I can be judgmental, and it can be hard to change my mind.

What are five places where you have lived?
1. Kentucky
2. Illinois
3. Germany
4. Washington State
5. Iraq (? - Does a fifteen month deployment count as living somewhere?)

What are five jobs you've had?
1. County Market cashier and book keeper
2. Inside Scoop sales clerk (mall candy store)
3. Cadre member at Warrior Forge
4. Platoon Leader
5. Well, I guess I dabbled at babysitting once or twice. Didn't go so well.

Okay, so I can't actually tag anyone but if anyone wants to play, just post a link in the comments. Random thought - if this is a meme of 5, why are there more than five questions?

Meme - Movie Quotes

When I was younger, my dad and I used to quote movies to each other and then try to guess which movie it was from - he still occasionally tries to do this, but I don't rewatch movies over and over again like I used to, so I usually just ignore him now. Anyway, I found this meme on Reading is My Superpower, and decided to play.

Here are the rules:
1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb (Internet Movie Database) and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. No Googling or IMDb-ing. That's cheating, and that's no fun!

1. I have no where to send this letter and no reason to believe you wish to receive it. I write it only for myself. And so I will hide it away with all things left unsaid and undone between us. - Legends of the Fall

2. You prefer a book to your husband's company? Well no wonder, I'm only flesh and blood - that's no match for the printed page! - Quills


3. Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together! Fuckin' real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn't want it, - - -! So what we got now is - - -! Everything's built on that! That's all we got, boy, fuckin' all. So I hope you know that, even if you don't never know the rest! You count the damn few times we have been together in nearly twenty years and you measure the short fucking leash you keep me on - and then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you'll kill me for needing somethin' I don't hardly never get. You have no idea how bad it gets! - Brokeback Mountain

4. Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die. And then dies. But if a man does know he's about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn't that the type of man who you want to keep alive? - Stranger Than Fiction

5. Please let me keep this memory, just this one. - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Superfast Reader

6. Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think? - Serenity

7. I owe you nothing. And you are nothing to me. Thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love. - Moulin Rouge

8. You never understood, why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special... you really don't know?... it was... it was the look on their faces... - The Prestige

9. It's okay for guys like you and Court to fuck everyone. But when I do it, I get dumped for innocent little twits like Cecile. God forbid, I exude confidence and enjoy sex. Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine 24/7 so I can be considered a lady? I'm the Marcia fucking Brady of the Upper East Side, and sometimes I want to kill myself. So there's your psychoanalysis, Dr. Freud. Now tell me, are you in... or are you out? - Cruel Intentions, Superfast Reader

10. Well I was just wonderin' why you would throw home when we got a two-run lead. You let the tying run get on second base and we lost the lead because of you. Start using your head. That's the lump that's three feet above your ass. - A League of Their Own, Dad

Just for my dad:
Dyin' ain't much of a livin', boy. - The Outlaw Josey Wales, Dad

Bonus:
Not a movie, but from one of my favorite TV shows:
No weapons... no friends... no hope. Take all that away and what's left? - Me. (Such a great scene!) - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 2 Episode 22 ("Becoming Part II"), Dad

Update: I guess it helps to have readers for this kind of stuff . . .